The new sustainability standard, approved by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), addresses chemicals and materials used in manufacturing carpet, the energy used in production, the use of recycled or bio-based content, methods of disposal and/or reuse and the overall environmental performance of manufacturers.
“The LEED standards for buildings suggested that standards were an effective strategy for encouraging competition and providing an objective way of evaluating sustainability claims made in the marketplace,” said Matthew Realff, an associate professor in Georgia Tech's School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering who served as chair of the committee that developed the standard.
This new standard aims to help consumers sort out the complex sustainable attributes and encourage manufacturers and their suppliers to seek out or develop environmentally preferable processes, practices, power sources and materials.
NSF International, an ANSI-accredited standards development body, created the standard and a committee consisting of carpet and rug manufacturers, end users such as interior design professionals, state agencies responsible for environmentally preferable product procurement practices, academics and non-governmental organizations approved it. The effort was spearheaded by Robert Peoples, director for sustainability for the Carpet and Rug Institute (CRI), a nonprofit trade association based in Dalton, Georgia.
“Thisnew standard provides tremendous benefit to those decision makers who specify and purchase billions of yards of carpet annually in the US. The new unified standard assures those purchasers that they are selecting environmentally preferable carpets,” said Werner Braun, president of CRI.
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The first carpet products certified to the new standard are expected to be available in the marketplace by April, according to Realff.
“Companies must gather production data for a year to be able to demonstrate the various performance requirements and some manufacturers might not have even been producing certain carpet styles that would meet certification standards for that length of time,” he explained.
Georgia Institute of Technology
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